Michael fitzGerald
The largely harmless purveyor of computer advice to the old and impatient

August 09, 2008

The need for big and expensive data storage

I have just invented another Mike's Laws of Computing " No data storage device should be smaller than a basketball" This will stop people using them and losing them. A UK television production company had a data stick stolen. This had the personal details of 250 children who had applied for auditions. If it had been the size of a baseball rather than a thumb it might not have been stolen. More importantly it would not have been used for confidential data which properly belongs within a controlled database. This is a powerful argument for "cloud computing" where one copy of data is held on an on-line server and can be accessed from anywhere. It is as secure as your password procedures and avoids people taking ad hoc copies of parts of the database to work on over the weekend. As well as being the size of a baseball the purchase price of a data storage device should be commensurate with the value of the data. For example that data stick should have cost the equivalent of a lost contract with a major broadcaster.